Would you have predicted this? Here is an excerpt from an article in the AARP Bulletin, November, 2017.

Where you are born may be associated with your risk for developing dementia, even if you later move far away, a new study suggests.

The report in JAMA Neurology* found higher dementia rates in those born in nine states,(mostly in the South) that also have high rates of stroke deaths.

Researchers examined medical records of 7,423 members of Kaiser Permanente Northern California. Records were first collected between 1964 and 1973, and reviewed again for dementia diagnoses between 1996 and 2015.

They found that the risk of dementia — adjusted for age, sex, and race — was 28 percent higher among people born in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, South Carolina, and West Virginia.

“We found place of birth to be a robust risk factor for dementia,” wrote the study’s authors.*Journal of the American Medical Association

Do you see anything interesting about the list of dementia-prone states? They all are red states.

Red: States carried by the Republicans in all four elections

Pale Red: States carried by the Republicans in three of the four elections

Purple: States carried by each party twice in the four elections

Pale Blue: States carried by the Democrats in three of the four elections